Barbeque Integrated Inc. (or simply Smokey Bones and
doing business as
A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...
Smokey Bones Bar and Fire Grill) is an American
casual dining
Restaurants fall into several industry classifications, based upon menu style, preparation methods and pricing, as well as the means by which the food is served to the customer. This article mainly describes the situation in the USA, while catego ...
restaurant chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...
. Owned by Barbeque Integrated Inc. and under the umbrella of
Sun Capital Partners
Sun Capital Partners, Inc., is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts. Sun Capital was founded in 1995 by Marc J. Leder and Rodger Krouse, former classmates at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and ...
, Smokey Bones is headquartered in
Aventura, Florida
Aventura is a planned, suburban city in northeastern Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, 17 miles north of the city of Miami and part of the Miami metropolitan area. The city is especially well-known for Aventura Mall, the 5th largest ...
. As of April 2023, Smokey Bones has 62 restaurants in 16
Eastern states.
Under its previous owner, Smokey Bones had as many as 128 restaurants across most of the United States before it shrank to its current core area.
History
In August 1999,
Darden Restaurants, Inc. opened the first Smokey Bones restaurant in
Orlando, Florida
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...
, at the site previously occupied by
Red Lobster
Red Lobster Hospitality LLC is an American casual dining restaurant chain headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company has operations across most of the United States (including Puerto Rico, Guam) and Canada, as well as in China, Ecuador, Hong ...
and close to Darden's headquarters.
By June 2001, Darden had opened 8 additional Smokey Bones BBQ Sports Bar restaurants in Florida, the Midwest and Northeast.
On May 5, 2007, it was announced that Darden Restaurants was closing 56 Smokey Bones restaurants and planning to sell the remaining 73 in its struggling chain.
The closings occurred in 22 states, primarily across the southwest and north-central United States.
The chain was sold to Barbeque Integrated Inc. in December 2007 for approximately $80 million.
On August 4, 2015, Ryan Esko was named CEO of Smokey Bones.
Esko was replaced by James O’Reilly in 2019.
See also
*
List of barbecue restaurants
This is a list of notable barbecue restaurants. Barbecue is a method and apparatus for char grilling food in the hot smoke of a wood fire, usually charcoal fueled. In the United States, to grill is to cook in this manner quickly, while barbecue ...
References
External links
Official website
{{Barbecue
Companies based in Orlando, Florida
Restaurants established in 1999
1999 establishments in Florida
Restaurants in Orlando, Florida
Restaurant chains in the United States
Barbecue restaurants in the United States
2007 mergers and acquisitions